Auction of Owen/Owens pottery to benefit library Friends

The Randolph County Public Library’s second annual Marjorie W. Memory Pottery Auction will take place during a Friends of the Library program featuring Holly George-Warren at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 29, at the Sara Smith Self Gallery of the Randolph Arts Guild, 123 Sunset Ave., Asheboro.

The program is free and the public is invited.

The silent auction will feature nine Owen/Owens family pottery pieces dating from the 1920s to the 2000s. Proceeds will benefit the Friends of the Library.

Pieces available include a dishpan (1920s), a pie dish in tobacco spit glaze (1950s) and two Chinese white rice bowls (1960s) by Ben Wade Owen; a pitcher from M.L. Owens (1990s); a Vernon Owens blue vase (1998); a Pam Owens teapot (2003); and a bowl and vase from Ben Owen III (1999).

Anyone who wants to bid but cannot attend the silent auction can submit a bid in advance. Bids received in advance will be entered as the first bids in the silent auction.

For information about how to bid, go here or call the Asheboro library at 318-6801. The pottery can be viewed at the library.

Memory was a longtime librarian at UNC-Greensboro and author of A History of the Randolph Public Library, 1935-1967. Following her death, colleague and good friend Stanley Hicks, now of Enid, OK, established the auction by donating two pieces of Jugtown pottery.

This year, Stanley arranged for Earl Senger and his wife Frances Freeman Senger (formerly of Asheboro) to donate the pottery to be auctioned. The Sengers are premier pottery collectors in the Southeast.